Monday, 21 June 2010

Ship Day

Day Five - Saturday 19 June 2010

Up early for a swift breakfast the pack the car to return it to the airport before getting the bus to Venice to pick up our ship: the" Norwegian Gem". We used a new "People Mover" - small driverless train not unlike London's Docklands trains - to get from Plazza Roma to the quayside.

The cruise check-in process was fine and done by a guy from Grangemouth! However the following wait to embark was a bit of a bind but we soon boarded and had lunch.

"Norwegian Gem", around three years old, is a vast ship although only about half the tonnage of newer, similar vessels at 92500 tons. A total of fourteen decks provides no end of facilities for guests on board and also serves as "home" for the crew and staff. Eating can be a 24/7 experience if you wish and all tastes are catered for with cuisine from all corners of the world.Although the ship calls at a new port each day there's more than plenty to do on board. I'm finding I have to keep reminding myself I'm on a "boat. So far there has been little sign of the motion usually experienced on smaller ships.

This evening, after dinner (we were lucky enough to get a table by a nice large window looking out over the Adriatic as we sailed towards Croatia) I was given a guided tour of the ship by the Quins, who had been on her a couple at yeas ago. We ended the evening by standing on the fourteenth deck watching another spectacular lightning show somewhere off to the north, after havig been to see the firt night offering in the theatre. I'm not sure of its capacity but it's a full sized, tiered auditorium that looks to have in excess of five hundred seats.

After enough stay watching I spent a few minutes in the bridge observation room. Although the screens were drawn, preventing a view of the bridge itself, the observation room has duplicates of the radar and helm instruments readouts, which were right up my street for eye-balling!

Bed time "My first night sleeping aboard a ship....."

I slept pretty well in a cabin (NCL refer to them as state rooms) that was more spacious than I thought it would have been. I don't think my room-mate slept so well, thanks to my snoring, which he had been warned about on several occasions - and not just by me!